Terms & Conditions

The American Board requires that all certification candidates submit to a criminal background check and provide official college or university transcripts. Candidates who received their degree outside the United States agree to have a course by course evaluation performed to obtain a statement of equivalency. Please direct background or teaching credential questions to our certification counselors by calling 1-866-445-5258. For unique circumstances, the American Board may run your background check prior to enrollment to ensure you are eligible. Submitting false information or omitting pertinent or material information in connection with your application is grounds for certification revocation or denial. By submitting this application, you are certifying that the following statements are true:

I have earned a Bachelor's degree or higher or will earn a bachelor's degree in the next 6 months

I have never been convicted of any felony, misdemeanor, or military offense

There are no felony (or similar) criminal charges pending against me

I have never had a teaching credential, license, or permit suspended, revoked, or voided due to misconduct

I fully understand and will comply with the regulations set forth in the Candidate Handbook

Refund Policy: The American Board understands that, after enrollment, a candidate may decide to withdraw from the program. However, because the American Board begins to incur administrative costs as soon as enrollment begins, it has adopted the following policy regarding requests for refunds:

All refund requests must be in writing (letter, fax) using the Refund Request Form. You may obtain this form by contacting the American Board at 1-866-445-5258

No Refund Request Form will be accepted if it is submitted more than 30 days after the date of the original payment to the American Board

Not more than 80 percent of the payment will be refunded. No preparation materials are eligible for a refund

No refund will be issued if written cancellation is received after 12:00 a.m. Eastern Time thirty days after payment was received

Retake payments are not eligible for refund

This refund policy does not apply to Teach & Inspire or Installment Payment Plan participants

There are no "extenuating circumstances" which will result in an exception to these policies.

Background Check : Background checks are run by Talentwise, Inc. If the background investigation vendor is unable to complete an investigation of your criminal history, the American Board will then require you to complete an FBI background check. FBI criminal background check results must be sent directly to the American Board from the FBI for review.

Authorization : These background reports may be obtained at any time after receipt of your authorization. TalentWise Solutions LLC ("TalentWise"), a consumer reporting agency, will obtain the report for the Company. Further information regarding TalentWise, including its privacy policy, may be found online at www.TalentWise.com . TalentWise is located at 19800 North Creek Parkway, Suite 200, Bothell, WA 98011, and can be reached at (866) 338-6739.

The information that may be included in your report include: Social security number trace, criminal records checks, public court records checks, driving records checks, and licensing and certification checks . The information contained in the report will be obtained from private and/or public record sources. You have the right, upon written request made within a reasonable time after receipt of this notice, to request disclosure of the nature and scope of any investigative consumer report.

I hereby authorize the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence (ABCTE) to procure the release of any and all information pertaining to me in a TalentWise Solutions LLC consumer report and/or investigative consumer report on me as defined under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

American Board Privacy Policy

American Board is committed to respecting the privacy of all candidates and donors. Personal information collected by American Board will be used to operate and provide services or to carry out transactions that candidates request or authorize. This information is collected, stored, and processed on servers located in the United States. Candidate payment information is processed on secure servers and encrypted.

American Board will not sell or rent any candidate's personally identifiable information to third parties. American Board will not share any candidate's personally identifiable information with third parties except in limited circumstances. These third parties are limited by law or by contract from using the information for secondary purposes beyond the purposes for which the information is shared. The circumstances under which candidates' personally identifiable information may be shared are :

We share information with companies that help us process the transactions you request and aid us in protecting your transactions from fraud, such as sharing your credit card number with a service that screens for lost and stolen credit card numbers.

We disclose information that we in good faith believe is appropriate to cooperate with investigations of fraud or other illegal activity.

We disclose information in response to a subpoena, warrant, court order, levy, attachment, order for a court-appointed receiver, or other comparable or administrative legal processes, including subpoenas from private parties in a civil action.

We disclose personally identifiable information directly to state departments of education, or their designated third party, in order to comply with score, licensing, and/or demographic requests as required by state and federal law.

We share aggregated statistical data for research and public relations. For example, we may disclose that a specific percentage of our candidates live in Florida; however, this aggregated information is not tied to personally identifiable information.